Systems and methods for reducing blocking artifacts

ABSTRACT

Several methods and systems for reducing blocking artifacts are disclosed. In an embodiment, the method includes receiving a pair of adjacent blocks having an edge being positioned between the adjacent blocks. The pair of adjacent blocks is associated with one or more coding blocks. The one or more coding blocks comprise one or more coding information associated with the coding of the pair of adjacent blocks. The method also includes conducting a determination of whether the pair of adjacent blocks is coded in a skip-mode based on the one or more coding information. The edge is filtered based on the determination. Filtering the edge comprises disabling a de-blocking filtering of the edge based on a determination that the pair of adjacent blocks is coded in the skip-mode; and enabling the de-blocking filtering of the edge based on determination that the pair of adjacent blocks is not associated with the skip-mode.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.13/529,132, filed Jun. 21, 2012, which claims the benefit of IndianProvisional Patent Application No. 2120/CHE/2011, filed in the IndianPatent Office on Jun. 22, 2011, both of which are incorporated herein byreference in their entirety.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present disclosure generally relates to the field of filteringmultimedia data.

BACKGROUND

Pursuant to an exemplary scenario, multimedia data captured by mediacapture devices, such as a camera or a camcorder, may be compressed forsaving memory during storage or for efficiently utilizing availablebandwidth during a transmission. The multimedia data, for example videodata, may be encoded utilizing encoding mechanisms that are sufficientto achieve compression of the video data. The video data maysubsequently be decompressed (for example, decoded) for display/viewingpurposes.

Moreover, in an exemplary scenario, various video coding paradigmssuggest a block-based coding of video data, where each frame of videodata is represented in terms of a plurality of blocks, and where codingtechniques such as motion compensation and transformation are applied tothe blocks so as to remove temporal and spatial redundancies in theframes corresponding to the video data. Pursuant to one exemplaryscenario, visual distortions in content may sometimes be observed whenviewing content corresponding to video data subjected to block-basedcoding. As a result of block-based coding of video data, a transition ofcontent from one block to another may sometimes be affected, especiallynear edges of the blocks resulting in visual distortions. Such visualdistortions, which may also be referred to as, for example, blockingartifacts, may reduce a perceptual quality of content corresponding tothe video data.

SUMMARY

Various methods and systems for reducing blocking artifacts inblock-based multimedia data are disclosed. In an embodiment, a method ofreducing blocking artifacts includes receiving a pair of adjacent blockshaving an edge being positioned between the adjacent blocks. The pair ofadjacent blocks is associated with one or more coding blocks. The one ormore coding blocks comprise one or more coding information associatedwith the coding of the pair of adjacent blocks. The method also includesconducting a determination, based on the one or more coding information,whether the pair of adjacent blocks is coded in a skip-mode. The edgebetween the pair of adjacent blocks is filtered based on thedetermination. The edge is filtered by performing one of: disabling ade-blocking filtering of the edge based on a determination that the pairof adjacent blocks is coded in the skip-mode; and enabling thede-blocking filtering of the edge based on a determination that the pairof adjacent blocks is not associated with the skip mode.

In one embodiment, a system configured to reduce blocking artifacts isdisclosed. The system includes a processing module and a filteringmodule. The processing module is configured to receive a pair ofadjacent blocks having an edge positioned between the adjacent blocks.The pair of adjacent blocks are associated with one or more codingblocks. The one or more coding blocks comprise one or more codinginformation associated with the coding of the pair of adjacent blocks.The processor is configured to conduct a determination, based on the oneor more coding information, of whether the pair of adjacent blocks iscoded in a skip-mode. The filtering module is communicatively associatedwith the processing module and is configured to filter the edge betweenthe pair of adjacent blocks based on the determination. The filteringmodule is configured to perform one of: disabling a de-blockingfiltering of the edge based on a determination that the pair of adjacentblocks is coded in the skip-mode; and enabling the de-blocking filteringof the edge based on a determination that the pair of adjacent blocks isnot associated with the skip-mode.

In an embodiment, an integrated circuit configured to reduce blockingartifacts from block-based multimedia data is disclosed. The integratedcircuit comprises coding module and a memory module. The coding moduleis configured to perform at least one of encoding of video data anddecoding of encoded video data. The coding module comprises a processingmodule and a filtering module. The processing module is configured toreceive a pair of adjacent blocks having an edge positioned between theadjacent blocks. The pair of adjacent blocks is associated with one ormore coding blocks. The one or more coding blocks comprise one or morecoding information associated with the coding of the pair of adjacentblocks. The processing module is further configured to conduct adetermination, based on the one or more coding information, whether thepair of adjacent blocks is coded in a skip-mode. The filtering module iscommunicatively associated with the processing module and is configuredto filter the edge between the pair of adjacent blocks based on thedetermination. The filtering module is configured to filter the edge byperforming one of: disabling a de-blocking filtering of the edge basedon a determination that the pair of adjacent blocks is associated withthe skip-mode; and enabling the de-blocking filtering of the edge basedon a determination that the pair of adjacent blocks is not associatedwith the skip-mode. The memory module is communicatively associated withthe coding module and is configured to store the multimedia datasubsequent to one of an encoding of the video data and a decoding of themultimedia data.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

FIGS. 1A and 1B illustrate simplified overviews of exemplary encodingand decoding processes, respectively, in accordance with an exemplaryscenario;

FIGS. 2A and 2B illustrate a vertical edge and a horizontal edge,respectively, associated with exemplary block-coded multimedia data inaccordance with an exemplary scenario;

FIG. 3 is an exemplary process flow implementation for reducing blockingartifacts in multimedia data in accordance with an exemplary embodiment;

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram of an exemplary method of reducing blockingartifacts in multimedia data in accordance with an embodiment;

FIG. 5 illustrates a variation in an exemplary process flowimplementation for reducing blocking artifacts in multimedia data inaccordance with an embodiment;

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of an exemplary system for reducing blockingartifacts in multimedia data according to an embodiment; and

FIG. 7 is a block diagram of an exemplary integrated circuit (IC)configured to reduce blocking artifacts from multimedia data inaccordance with an embodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Pursuant to an exemplary scenario, several video processing standardsutilize block-based coding techniques for facilitating data compression.The block-based coding techniques involve a division of multimedia data,such as video data, into a plurality of blocks (e.g., macro blocks).However, the division of video data into the blocks may result in theoccurrence of blocking artifacts due to a lack of correlation betweenthe blocks. The blocking artifacts include visible artifacts in areconstructed video, wherein the visible artifacts correspond to one ormore blocks used during prediction and residual signal coding processes.The blocking artifacts have a pronounced effect at low bit rates andcause blocking distortion, thereby affecting the quality of video data.

In one exemplary scenario, in order to reduce the occurrence of theblocking artifacts, de-blocking filters are employed during the encodingand decoding processes. The de-blocking filters are applied to edgespositioned between adjacent blocks to reduce the blocking artifactswithout reducing the sharpness of the video data, which results in animprovement of the subjective quality of video data. The de-blockingfilters may be applied to vertical and/or horizontal edges associatedwith the blocks of the video data. An exemplary application ofde-blocking filters during the encoding and decoding processes isexplained herein with reference to FIGS. 1A and 1B.

FIGS. 1A and 1B illustrate simplified overviews of exemplary processesfor encoding and decoding multimedia data, respectively, which involvethe application of a de-blocking filter, in accordance with an exemplaryscenario. In particular, FIG. 1A illustrates a simplified overview of anencoding process flow 110 for encoding multimedia data. Pursuant to anexemplary scenario, a multimedia encoder may perform the encodingprocess flow 110 to achieve the compression of the multimedia data. Anexample of the multimedia data may be video data.

The multimedia encoder may be configured within a multimedia system.Examples of the multimedia system may include, but are not limited to,(1) multimedia devices, such as cellular phones, digital video camerasand digital camcorders; (2) data processing devices, such as personalcomputers, laptops and personal digital assistants; and (3) consumerelectronics, such as set top boxes, digital video disk (DVD) players andvideo network servers. Pursuant to an exemplary scenario, the multimediaencoder may be any machine capable of executing a set of instructions(sequential and/or otherwise) so as to perform an encoding of multimediadata.

The multimedia encoding process flow 110 may include two data flowpaths, namely, a forward path 130 and a reconstruction path 150. In theforward path 130, the multimedia data, such as the multimedia data 132,is transformed and quantized, while in the reconstructed path 150, thequantized coefficients associated with the multimedia data are decodedin order to reconstruct a frame for the encoding of additional blocks.The multimedia data 132 may be compressed so as to efficiently utilize astorage capacity during storage or a spectrum/bandwidth duringtransmission.

In the forward path 130, the multimedia data 132 may be received by themultimedia encoder from a media capture device. Examples of a mediacapture device may include a video camera or a camcorder. The mediacapture device may be, for example, a stand-alone device or a part of amobile device, such as a Smartphone, or a data processing device, suchas a personal computer, a laptop device or a personal digital assistant(PDA). The multimedia data 132 may also be received by the multimediaencoder from a transcoding system, which may be implemented, forexample, in hardware, software and/or firmware, and which may be astand-alone device or a part of a media capture device. Examples ofmultimedia data 132 may include, for example, video data, image data,audio-video data, graphical data, textual data or any combinationthereof.

With reference still to FIG. 1A, at 134 of the forward path associatedwith the encoding process flow 130, a prediction for each block fromamong a number of blocks of multimedia data 132 is determined andsubtracted from the block in order to form residual multimedia data. Theprediction for each block of multimedia data 132 may be performed basedon previously encoded blocks of multimedia data 132, either from currentframe (e.g., intra prediction) or from other frames that have alreadybeen encoded and transmitted (e.g., inter prediction). Identifying asuitable inter-prediction may be referred to as motion estimation (ME)and subtracting the inter-prediction from the current block may bereferred to as motion compensation (MC).

After prediction and subtraction, at 134, the residual multimedia datais transformed at 136. The transformation of the residual multimediadata outputs a set of transform coefficients, each of which is aweighting value for a standard basis pattern. The weighted basispatterns, when combined, are capable of recreating the residualmultimedia data. At 138, the set of transform coefficients are thenquantized (such as where each coefficient is scaled corresponding to ascale-down factor which may be a mathematical reciprocal of the scale-upfactor specified by a preselected multimedia paradigm, effectivelysetting a number of transform coefficients to a small value (including azero value)) to achieve compression.

The quantized transform coefficients, along with certain information(for example, information such as: information about the structure ofcompressed data, information about a complete sequence of multimediadata 132 and/or information that enables a decoder to re-create theprediction), are subject to entropy encoding (e.g., conversion intobinary codes using variable length coding and/or arithmetic coding) at140. The entropy encoding of the multimedia data 132 produces anefficient, compact binary representation of the information in the formof encoded multimedia data. The encoded multimedia data may then bestored and/or transmitted.

In the reconstruction path 150 associated with the encoding process flow110, the quantized transform coefficients are decoded in order toreconstruct a frame for the purpose of encoding additional blocks. Forexample, at 152 and 154, the quantized transform coefficients arede-quantized and inverse transformed, respectively, in order to generatea difference block or a residual block. It is noted that the differenceblock (or the residual block) may not be identical to the originaldifference block since the quantization process is lossy, and thereforethe difference block is a distorted version of the original encodedblock of multimedia data. At 156, a prediction block is added to thedifference block and the resulting multimedia block may be processed soas to block artifacts, as the resulting multimedia block is a distortedversion of the original block. The effects of blocking distortion in theresulting multimedia block is reduced by applying a filter, for example,filter at 158, so as to generate reconstructed multimedia data at 160.The reconstructed multimedia data 160 may be saved in a storage unit(e.g., a frame memory) or subsequently utilized for prediction.

FIG. 1B illustrates a simplified overview of a decoding process flow 160for decoding encoded multimedia data 162. Pursuant to an exemplaryscenario, a multimedia decoder may perform the decoding process flow 160to achieve the decompression of the multimedia data 132. The multimediadecoder may be configured within a multimedia system, such as themultimedia system of FIG. 1A. At 164, the encoded multimedia data 162may be entropy decoded (e.g., converted from the binary form, first intointermediate symbols and thereafter into quantized transformcoefficients along with the decoding of other encoded information). At166, the quantized transform coefficients may be de-quantized (e.g.,scaled corresponding to a scale-up factor, which may be, in an exemplaryembodiment, a value specified by a preselected multimedia paradigm) andthen inversely transformed at 168 to obtain the residual multimediadata. At 170, the residual multimedia data may be added to (e.g.,combined with) predicted blocks configured from the other informationthat is decoded along with the quantized transform coefficients in orderto create the blocks of multimedia data.

As disclosed herein, in the block-based coding (described with referenceto FIGS. 1A and 1B), the multimedia data 132 is fragmented into blockswhich in turn are transformed and quantized separately, thereby leadingto many discontinuities occurring at the edges between adjacent blocks.In addition, prediction of motion-compensated blocks may contribute tofurther enhancement of these discontinuities as the motion vectors (MVs)for prediction may be associated with different reference frames. TheseMVs may not provide a perfect match and therefore may propagate thediscontinuities from the reference frame throughout multimedia data.These effects are commonly known as blocking artifacts, which can bequite visible and may lower the quality of the decompressed multimediadata. In order to counter blocking artifacts, a filter, for example, afilter 172 is deployed towards the end of the reconstruction path. Theblocks of the resulting multimedia data obtained at the output ofpredict and add block 170 may be filtered by the filter 172 so as togenerate reconstructed blocks of multimedia data 174. The filter 172 isconfigured to smooth the transition between two adjacent blocks of theresulting multimedia data, and thus reduce the visual disturbancecreated by the artifacts.

In particular, the de-blocking filtering is performed to each decodedblock from among a plurality of decoded blocks in order to reduce thedistortion. For example, as illustrated in FIG. 1A, in an encoder, thede-blocking filtering is performed after the inverse transform andbefore reconstructing and storing the block. Also, as illustrated inFIG. 1B, in the decoder, the de-blocking filtering is performed beforereconstructing and displaying the block. As used herein, performingde-blocking filtering implies performing de-blocking filtering to thehorizontal and vertical edges or boundaries of the blocks. Eachde-blocking filtering operation may affect three pixels on either sideof the boundary. As used herein, the term ‘edge’ or the ‘boundary’ mayhave the same meaning as the term ‘margin’ or ‘periphery’ of theadjacent blocks such that the pair of adjacent blocks may comprise anedge or a boundary disposed in-between the adjacent blocks. The edge maybe a vertical edge or a horizontal edge. An exemplary vertical edge anda horizontal edge disposed in-between a pair of adjacent blocks isillustrated with reference to FIGS. 2A and 2B, respectively.

FIGS. 2A and 2B illustrate edges, for example a horizontal edge and avertical edge disposed in-between a pair of blocks in accordance with anexemplary embodiment. FIG. 2A illustrate a first plurality of blocks 210having edges 212, 214, 216, 218 disposed in-between adjacent blocks,such as blocks 220 and 222, 222 and 224, 224 and 226, and 226 and 228,respectively. The edges 212, 214, 216, 218, as represented in FIG. 2A,are vertical edges. Referring now to FIG. 2B, a second plurality ofblocks 230 having edges 232, 234, 236, 238 between the adjacent pairs ofblocks, such as blocks 240 and 242, 242 and 244, 244 and 246, and 246and 248, respectively. The edges 232, 234, 236, 238, as represented inFIG. 2B, are horizontal edges.

In block-based encoding, the de-blocking filtering is performed at thevertical edges and the horizontal edges of the blocks. The de-blockingmay be performed by computing a boundary strength (BS) parameterassociated with each of the edges. The BS parameter is indicative of anextent of de-blocking filtering to be performed to that edge. Forexample, the BS parameter may assume one of five values ranging from 0to 4, which are indicative of different edge conditions associated withthat edge. Particularly, a value of BS as 4 indicates a strongestde-blocking filtering condition/mode while a value of zero is indicativeof an absence of de-blocking filtering. It is noted that the term“boundary strength” as used herein, may be construed, for example, asreferring to strength of an edge between a pair of adjacent blocks andis a numerical value computed based on an encoding mode of the adjacentblocks associated with the edge and encoding data associated with theadjacent blocks. The encoding mode may include an intra prediction mode,an inter prediction mode or a skip-mode.

It should be noted that preselected multimedia paradigms, for example,video coding paradigms, provide specifications for implementation of theprocess flow for de-blocking filtering. One such exemplaryimplementation of a de-blocking process flow, as suggested by certainexemplary multimedia coding paradigms, and a corresponding process flowimplementation are outlined in FIG. 3.

FIG. 3 is an exemplary process flow implementation of a method 300 forreducing blocking artifacts in multimedia data in accordance with anexemplary embodiment. The method 300 includes performing de-blockingfiltering by determining a value of a BS parameter associated with edgesbetween pairs of adjacent blocks in multimedia data, and filtering theedges based on the value of the BS parameter. The method 300 is equallyapplicable to the computation of the value of the BS parameterassociated with a vertical edge and a horizontal edge disposedin-between a pair of adjacent blocks. The method 300 can be implementedby a multimedia encoder/decoder, such as a multimedia encoder/decoder110, 160 (explained in FIGS. 1A/1B, respectively) that is based on ablock-based multimedia coding standard.

In an embodiment, and pursuant to a block-based multimedia codingstandard, such as ITU-T H.264 standard, a frame is divided into codingblocks. The coding blocks may be referred to as “macroblocks (MBs)”. TheITU-T H.264 standard supports MBs of sizes 16×16 pixels. In anembodiment, for each coding block in the frame, a prediction block isdetermined that may match with the coding block based on motionestimation. The ‘prediction block’ in ITU-T H.264 standard can be of16×16, 16×8, 8×16, 8×8, 8×4, 4×8 and 4×4 pixels. The prediction blockmay be coded by transformation and quantization. The transformation of ablock coverts the pixel value of the block from spatial domain into afrequency domain to generate transform block. The transform block inITU-T H.264 standard can have a size of be of 8×8 pixels to 4×4 pixels.

Additionally, in other embodiment, and pursuant to block-basedmultimedia coding standard, such as HEVC standard, a frame isrepresented by a block hierarchy comprising a coding block, a predictionblock and a transformation block. For example, in HEVC standardimplementation, the coding block, the prediction block and the transformblock comprises a coding unit (CU), a prediction unit (PU) and atransform unit (TU), respectively. Herein, when the size of a largestcoding unit (LCU) and the hierarchical depth of CU are defined, theoverall coding structure may be characterized by the various sizes ofCU, PU and TU in a recursive manner. The LCU is the base unit forblock-based coding. The size of LCU may be, for example, 32×32, 64×64,and the like. The CU is the basic coding unit inside the LCU and canhave various sizes. For a size and hierarchical depth of the LCU, the CUcan be expressed in a recursive quadtree representation adapted to theframe. For any size of the CU, a series of split flags is used tospecify smaller size CUs (SCU) inside the CU. For every CU that does notfurther split, TU quadtree and PU partition information is specified.and TUs. The size of a TU and PU cannot be larger than that of a CU andthey are independent of each other. The size of the TU may be, forexample, 4×4, 8×8, 16×16, 32×32, 32×16, 16×32, 16×8, 8×16. The size ofthe PU may be, for example 8×8, 16×8, 8×16, 16×16, 32×16, 16×32, 32×32.In order to perform the de-blocking filtering, vertical edges andhorizontal edges of each PU and TU are de-blocked.

The method 300 for performing de-blocking filtering starts at 302,wherein the pair of adjacent blocks associated with block-codedmultimedia data is received. The pair of adjacent blocks includes anedge positioned there between (for example, one of a vertical edge or ahorizontal edge as illustrated and explained with reference to FIGS. 2Aand 2B, respectively). At 304, a determination is made as to whether atleast one of the blocks from among the pair of adjacent blocks isintra-coded. If it is determined that either of the pair of blocks isintra-coded, then a further determination is made at 306 as to whetherthe edge disposed between the blocks from among the pair of blocks is anedge of a coding block. In an embodiment, the coding block may be amacro-block, for example, in case of H.264 standard implementation. Inanother embodiment, the coding block may be a CU, for example, in caseof HEVC standard implementation. If the edge is determined to be theedge of the CU, then the BS parameter associated with the edge isassigned a value of 4, at 308. Alternatively, the BS parameterassociated with the edge is assigned a value of 3, at 310. It is notedthat the de-blocking filtering is maintained stronger at edgescontaining a significant amount of blocking distortion, such as an edgebetween adjacent intra-coded blocks and between adjacent blockscontaining coded coefficients.

Upon determining at 304 that neither of the blocks from among the pairof adjacent blocks is intra-coded, the values of code block flag (CBF)parameter associated with the pair of adjacent blocks are determined.Particularly, it is determined (at 312) whether the CBF parameters of atleast one of the pair of blocks are non-zero. Upon determining the CBFparameter of the at least one of the pair of blocks to be non-zero, theBS parameter associated with the edge is assigned a value of 2 at 314.If, however, the CBF parameters of both the blocks from among the pairof adjacent blocks are determined to be zero, then it is determined (at316) whether the reference frame associated with both blocks of the pairof adjacent blocks are the same. Upon determining that the referenceframes associated with the pair of adjacent blocks are the same, the BSvalue associated with the edge is assigned a value of one at 318,thereby allowing a weak de-blocking filtering.

If, however, the reference frames for both of the blocks from among thepair of adjacent blocks are determined to be different, then the BSvalue assigned to the edge is determined based on a difference betweentwo or more unfiltered pixel values of adjacent pixels across thehorizontal edge and the vertical edge. In particular, upon thedetermination that the difference between two or more unfiltered pixelvalues of adjacent pixels across the horizontal edge and the verticaledge is greater than a threshold value (for example, 3), the edge isassigned a BS parameter value of 1, and the de-blocking filtering of theedge is performed accordingly. Alternatively, if the difference betweentwo or more unfiltered pixel values of adjacent pixels across thehorizontal edge and the vertical edge is not determined to be greaterthan the threshold value, then the edge is assigned a BS parameter valueof zero. The BS value of zero corresponds to a skip-mode, wherein thede-blocking filtering of the edge is skipped. In particular, thede-blocking filtering is not applied to the corresponding edge upon thedetermination that the edge is coded in the skip-mode.

As discussed herein with reference to FIG. 3, the method 300 for thedetermination of the BS parameter to perform de-blocking filtering of anedge includes a computation of various coding parameter values, such asintra-coded blocks, a CBF parameter, a reference frame determination, amotion vector determination, and the like, associated with the pair ofadjacent blocks. Also, a degree of de-blocking filtering to be appliedis determined based on the determination of the coding parameter values.It is noted that the computation/determination of the coding parametersassociated with the blocks may involve complex calculations. Variousembodiments of the present technology provide methods and systems thatmay be applied to efficiently determine the de-blocking filteringwithout performing complex calculations. Various embodiments of thepresent disclosure are herein disclosed with reference to FIGS. 4 to 7.

The following description and accompanying figures demonstrate that thepresent technology may be practiced or otherwise implemented in avariety of different embodiments. It should be noted, however, that thescope of the present technology is not limited to any or all of theembodiments disclosed herein. Indeed, one or more of the devices,features, operations, processes, characteristics, or other qualities ofa disclosed embodiment may be removed, replaced, supplemented, orchanged.

FIG. 4 illustrates a flow diagram of a method 400 of reducing blockingartifacts in multimedia data according to an embodiment. In anembodiment, the method 400 may be computer-implemented. In anembodiment, the blocking artifacts may be reduced by performing ade-blocking filtering at the edges of the blocks associated with themultimedia data. In an embodiment, the edges (or boundaries) where thede-blocking filtering is performed may be one of a vertical edge or ahorizontal edge. The vertical edges and the horizontal edges between thepair of blocks are explained with respect to FIGS. 2A and 2B.

At operation 402, a pair of adjacent blocks associated with ablock-coded multimedia data is received. The pair of adjacent blockscomprises an edge positioned there-between. In an embodiment, the pairof adjacent blocks is associated with one or more coding blocks. In anembodiment, the one or more coding blocks may include one or moremacro-blocks, for example, in case of H.264 standard implementation. Inanother embodiment, the one or more coding blocks may include one ormore CUs, for example, in case of HEVC standard implementation. In anembodiment, the one or more coding block comprises one or more codinginformation associated with the pair of adjacent blocks.

In an embodiment, each block of the pair of adjacent blocks may includesone of a transform block and a prediction block. For example, for ITUH.264 standard implementation, each block of the pair of adjacent blocksincludes one of a prediction block and a transform block. In anotherexample, such as for HEVC standard implementation, each of the pair ofadjacent blocks includes one of a PU and a TU.

In an embodiment, the pair of adjacent blocks comprises encodedmultimedia data and may be received upon the encoding of multimedia datareceived by an encoder (such as explained herein with reference to FIG.1A). In one embodiment, the pair of adjacent blocks may be received in adecoder after the encoded multimedia data is reconstructed from thepredicted multimedia data (such as explained herein with reference toFIG. 1B). In an embodiment, during encoding of the multimedia data, theblocks may be inter-coded by using motion-compensated prediction fromone or more previously encoded video frames or intra-coded without aprediction from any other frame. After the encoding, many inter-codedblocks may have zero motion vectors (MVs) and/or quantized coefficients.A block with a zero MV and all zero quantized coefficients can be‘skipped’ such that no coded data is transmitted for the block. Suchblocks may be transmitted as ‘skip-mode’ blocks. The term ‘skip-mode’for a block, as used herein, may be defined as a block for which noother information is coded other than an indication that the block isdecoded as ‘skipped’. A block that is coded as skipped may be referredto as a ‘skipped block’. In an embodiment, the coded informationindicating the mode of a block as a skip-mode may include merely asingle bit of information.

In an exemplary embodiment, a significant number of inter-coded blocksassociated with the multimedia data may tend to be skipped because oflow/medium activity associated with the multimedia data. For example,for multimedia content representing a video conferencing that maycomprise various blocks that may be skipped, the video conferencingrelated multimedia content comprises low/medium activity. Other examplesof the multimedia content may include, but are not limited to, videosurveillance data, videos showing news reading, and the like. In anembodiment, the blocks that may be skipped with little or no distortionmay not be coded, thereby resulting in a substantial computationalsavings without significantly affecting the rate of distortionperformance.

At operation 404, a determination is conducted, based on the one or morecoding information, that whether the pair of adjacent blocks are codedin a skip-mode. In an embodiment, for ascertaining whether the blocksare coded as a skip-mode block, the one or more coding informationtransmitting along with the coding block is accessed. A block coded in askip-mode may be skipped during the encoding of the multimedia data.

At operation 406, an edge positioned in-between the pair of adjacentblocks is filtered based on the determination. In an embodiment, thepair of adjacent blocks is filtered by disabling a de-blocking filteringof the edge based on the determination that the pair of adjacent blocksis associated with the skip-mode. In an embodiment, the de-blockingfiltering of the edge may be disabled by assigning a zero value to a BSparameter associated with the edge.

In one embodiment, the pair of adjacent blocks is filtered by performingthe de-blocking filtering of the edge based on a determination that thepair of adjacent blocks is not associated with the skip-mode. In anembodiment, the de-blocking filtering of the edge is performed ondetermining coding parameters associated with the pair of adjacentblocks. In an embodiment, the coding parameters includes at least one ofa residual data, a motion estimation data and a data associated with oneor more reference pictures corresponding to the blocks. In anembodiment, a BS parameter may be assigned to the edge based on thecoding parameters. The assignment of the BS parameter to the edge basedon the coding parameters is explained in further detail herein withreference to FIG. 5. In an embodiment, the de-blocking filtering of theedge is performed based on the value of the BS parameter assignedthereto. In an embodiment, the BS parameter may assume either of fivevalues ranging from zero to four, wherein the value of zero indicatesthat no de-blocking filtering is to be performed while the value of 4 isassociated with a maximum de-blocking filtering.

As discussed herein, the determination of the skip-mode codingassociated with a pair of adjacent block enables the avoidance ofcomplex computations that might otherwise be performed beforeascertaining the disabling of the de-blocking filtering of the block(see, e.g., FIG. 3). For example, referring to FIG. 3, the computationsassociated with operations 312-322 may be avoided if it is determined inthe beginning that the block under consideration is coded in askip-mode. Moreover, an access to the memory in order to read areference picture index (at operation 316) and motion vector (atoperation 320) may be avoided if the pair of adjacent blocks isdetermined to be coded in the skip-mode.

FIG. 5 illustrates an exemplary flow diagram for a method 500 ofremoving blocking artifacts from multimedia data according to anembodiment. In an embodiment, for each edge between a pair of blocks, aBS parameter is determined, and, based on the value of the BS parameter,a de-blocking filtering of the edge is performed in order toreduce/remove de-blocking artifacts. In an embodiment, the edge may be aboundary that may be common between the adjacent pair of blocks. Thedetermination of the BS parameter is based on various parametersassociated with the encoding of the blocks of the multimedia data. In anembodiment, the edges may be assigned either of five values ranging fromzero to four, wherein the value of zero indicates that no filtering isto be implemented while the value of 4 is associated with a strongestfiltering.

At operation 502, the method 500 of reducing blocking artifacts inencoded multimedia data is initiated. In an embodiment, the encodedmultimedia data may include a plurality of blocks, wherein an edge ispositioned between adjacent blocks from among the plurality of blocks.In an embodiment, each block of the pair of adjacent blocks may be oneof a prediction block and a transform block. More specifically, the pairof adjacent blocks may represent a prediction block and a transformblock, or a pair of transform blocks or a pair of prediction blocks.Additionally, the prediction block and the transform block may representbasic units of prediction and transformation, respectively, as per oneor more video coding paradigms including, for example, H.264 codingparadigm, HEVC paradigm, and the like.

In an embodiment, the pair of adjacent blocks may include a verticaledge or a horizontal edge positioned there between (such as, asexplained herein with reference to FIGS. 2A and 2B). In an embodiment, ade-blocking filter is configured to execute the filtering of the edge inorder to reduce blocking artifacts associated with the edge. In anembodiment, the pair of adjacent blocks is associated with one or morecoding blocks. In an embodiment, the one or more coding blocks may bemacro-blocks, for example, in case of H.264 standard implementation. Inanother embodiment, the one or more coding blocks may be CUs, forexample, in case of HEVC standard implementation. In an embodiment, theone or more coding blocks comprise one or more coding informationassociated with the pair of adjacent blocks.

In an exemplary embodiment, the size of the block may be specified by avariable log2BlockSize. Also, it may be assumed that (xEk, yEj) definesa set of edge locations associated with a frame or a picture of themultimedia data, wherein

-   -   k=0 . . . nE−1, and    -   j=0 . . . nE−1, and wherein    -   nE is set equal to (1<<log2BlockSize)>>2),    -   xE0=0,    -   yE0=0,    -   xEk+1=xEk+4, and    -   yEj+1=yEj+4.

At operation 504, it is determined whether at least one block of thepair of adjacent blocks intra-coded. If it is determined that either ofthe blocks of the pair of adjacent blocks is intra-coded, then it isfurther determined at 506 whether the edge is associated with a codingblock edge. If it is determined at operation 506 that the edge is alsothe coding block edge, then at operation 508 the value of the BS for theedge is determined to be 4. Alternatively, upon the determination atoperation 506 that the edge is not the coding block edge, at operation508 the value of the BS parameter for the edge is determined to be 3. Itis noted that a BS value of 3 or 4 is associated with a strongde-blocking filtering.

In an embodiment, the determination (at operation 506) of whether theedge is also the coding block edge may be performed as follows:

-   -   If horEdgeFlags[xEk][yEj]=1,    -   then Set    -   p0=recPicture[xC+xEk][yC+yEj−1] and    -   q0=recPicture[xC+xEk][yC+yEj].    -   filterDir=1    -   Else if    -   verEdgeFlags[xEk][yEj]=1,    -   then Set    -   p0=recPicture[xC+xEk]−1 [yC+yEj] and    -   q0=recPicture[xC+xEk][yC+yEj].    -   filterDir=0.    -   where, horEdgeFlags and verEdgeFlags represent the horizontal        edge flag and the vertical edge flag, respectively, associated        with the edge,    -   p0 and q0 represent the adjacent blocks, and    -   filterDir is a variable.

Depending on the value of the variable filterDir, the variablebS[filterDir][xEk][yEj] may be derived. The variablebS[filterDir][xEk][yEj] is indicative of the value of the BS parameterbased on the value of the variable filterDir. For example, at block 508,the variable bS[0][xEk][yEj] is set equal to 4. The value of 4 beingassigned to the variable bS[0][xEk][yEj] indicates that the adjacentblocks p0 or q0 are associated with a coding block coded withintra-prediction mode and that the edge is also a coding block edge. If,however, the adjacent blocks (for example, blocks p0 or q0) areassociated with a coding block coded with intra-prediction mode, but theedge is not the coding block edge, then the variablebS[filterDir][xEk][yEj] is set equal to 3.

At operation 504, if it is determined that neither of the blocks fromamong the pair of adjacent blocks is intra-coded, then, at operation512, it is determined whether the pair of blocks is associated with oneor more coding blocks coded in a skip-mode. If it is determined atoperation 512 that the pair of blocks is associated with one or morecoding blocks coded in the skip-mode, then the BS parameter for the edgeis assigned a value of 0. In an embodiment, the BS parameter is assigneda value of 0 by making the variable bS[filterDir][xEk][yEj] equal to 0.In an embodiment, the assignment of a value of 0 to the BS parameterindicates that the blocks (p0 or q0) of the pair of adjacent blocks areassociated with the coding blocks coded with the skip-mode.

In an embodiment, if at operation 512, it is determined that the blocksfrom among the pair of adjacent blocks are not associated with one ormore coding blocks coded with the skip-mode, then the process forreducing blocking artifacts may be performed in a manner similar to themethod 300 explained herein with reference to FIG. 3. In particular, theoperations 516-528 may be performed in a manner similar to theoperations 312-324 of the method 300. For example, it is determined atoperation 516 whether or not the CBF parameter associated with the pairof adjacent blocks (p0 and q0) is non-zero. If it is determined that theCBF parameter associated with the pair of adjacent blocks (p0 and q0)are non-zero, then, at operation 518, the BS parameter is assigned avalue of 2. In an embodiment, the BS parameter is assigned a value of 2by making the variable bS[filterDir][xEk][yEj] equal to 2. In anembodiment, the assignment of a value of 2 to the BS parameter mayindicate that at least one of the blocks (p0 or q0) from among the pairof adjacent blocks is in a TU that contains a non-zero transformcoefficient level.

If it is determined at block 516 that the CBF parameter associated withat least one of the blocks from among the pair of adjacent blocks iszero, then various coding parameters associated with the coding ofblocks of the pair of adjacent blocks may be determined, and the edgemay be selectively assigned BS values based on the determination of thecoding parameters. For example, the BS parameter may be assigned avalues of 1 based on the determination of various coding parametersincluding, but not limited to, a reference image index, motion vectors,and the like. For example, in one embodiment, it is determined atoperation 520, that whether the PU comprising the block p0 has the samereference picture as the PU comprising the block q0. If it is determinedthat the reference picture used for predicting the block p0 and theblock q0 are the same, then the BS parameter may be assigned a valueof 1. If, however, it is determined at operation 520 that the referencepicture used for predicting the block p0 and the block q0 are not same,then, at operation 524, an absolute difference of horizontal components(AbsHor) and an absolute difference of vertical components (AbsVer)associated with the motion vectors used for predicting the PU containingthe blocks p0 and q0 may be determined. If it is determined at operation524 that either of the AbsHor and AbsVer is greater than or equal to 4in units of luminance samples, then the BS parameter may be assigned avalue of 1 at operation 526. Otherwise, if it is determined at operation524 that neither of the AbsHor and AbsVer is greater than or equal to 4in units of luminance samples, then the BS parameter may be assigned avalue of 0 at operation 528. In an embodiment, the BS parameter isassigned a value of 0 by making the variable bS[filterDir][xEk][yEj]equal to 0.

In an embodiment, the method 500 represents a variation in an exemplarymethod (such as discussed herein with reference to FIG. 3) for reductionof de-blocking artifacts of multimedia data. As will be noted, theblocks 502-508 and 516-528 outline an exemplary process implementationfor reduction of blocking artifacts by performing de-blocking filtering,whereas blocks 512-514 outline variations in a process of performingde-blocking filtering of the multimedia data to thereby remove blockingartifacts from the multimedia data. An exemplary system configured toimplement the method flow outlined in the flow diagram 500 for reducingblocking artifacts is provided in FIG. 6.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of a system 600 for reducing blockingartifacts of multimedia data, for example, a block-coded multimedia dataaccording to an embodiment. In an embodiment, a multimedia data may beprocessed to generate the block-coded multimedia data, such as explainedherein with reference to FIGS. 1A and 1B. Examples of multimedia datamay include video data, image data, audio-video data, graphical data,textual data, or any combinations thereof. The blocking artifacts may bereduced by de-blocking filtering of the block-coded multimedia data. Thevisual quality of the block-coded multimedia data is improved byperforming de-blocking filtering which is responsible for reducingvisually disturbing blocking artifacts and discontinuities in a framethat may occur due to coarse quantization of blocks andmotion-compensated prediction.

In an embodiment, the system 600 is configured to be included in amultimedia encoder/decoder. In one embodiment, the system 600 is a highefficiency video coding (HEVC) based video encoder. In one embodiment,the system 600 is one of a moving picture experts group (MPEG)-1 basedvideo decoder, MPEG-2 based video encoder and MPEG-4 based videoencoder. In one embodiment, the system 600 is a HEVC based videodecoder. In one embodiment, the system 600 is one of a MPEG-1 basedvideo decoder, MPEG-2 based video decoder and MPEG-4 based videodecoder. In one embodiment, the system 600 is a HEVC based videoencoder. In one embodiment, the system 600 is one of a MPEG-1 basedvideo encoder, MPEG-2 based video encoder and MPEG-4 based videoencoder. In an embodiment, the system 600 may be a stand-alone device orconfigured within a multimedia system. Examples of such multimediasystems may include, but are not limited to, (1) multimedia devices,such as cellular phones, digital video cameras and digital camcorders;(2) data processing devices, such as personal computers, laptops andpersonal digital assistants; and (3) consumer electronics, such as settop boxes, digital video disk (DVD) players and video network servers.

The system 600 is depicted to include a processing module 602 and afiltering module 604. In an embodiment, the processing module 602 andthe filtering module 604 are configured to communicate with each othervia or through a bus 606. Examples of the bus 606 may include, but arenot limited to, a data bus, an address bus, a control bus, and the like.The bus 606 may be, for example, a serial bus, a bi-directional bus or aunidirectional bus. In an embodiment, the filtering module 604 isconfigured to filter edges positioned between adjacent blocks of thevideo data. In an embodiment, filtering the edge may involve modifyingpixel values of pixels on one side or either side of the edge in orderto smooth out a difference in pixel values to thereby reduce theoccurrence of blocking artifacts (for example, visual distortions indisplayed video data). Exemplary edges between a pair of adjacent blocksare illustrated in FIGS. 2A and 2B.

The processing module 602 may be configured to receive the block-codedmultimedia data. In an embodiment, the block-coded multimedia data mayinclude blocks of data such that a pair of adjacent blocks may comprisean edge positioned therebetween. In an embodiment, the block-codedmultimedia data may be received by the processing module 602 from anencoder associated with a multimedia system and/or transcoding systems,such as, for example, a stand-alone device or a part of a mobile device,such as a Smartphone, or a data processing device, such as a personalcomputer, a laptop device or a personal digital assistant (PDA). In anembodiment, the blocks of the pair of adjacent blocks may be one of aprediction block and a transform block. More specifically, the pair ofadjacent blocks may represent a prediction block and a transform block,or a pair of transform blocks or a pair of prediction blocks.Additionally, the prediction block and the transform block may representbasic units of prediction and transformation, respectively, as per oneor more video coding paradigms including, for example, H.264 codingparadigm, HEVC paradigm, and the like.

In an embodiment, the processing module 602 is configured to determinewhether the blocks from among a pair of adjacent blocks are intra-coded.Upon the determination by the processing module 602 that at least one ofthe pair of adjacent blocks is not intra-coded, the processing module602 is further configured to determine whether the pair of adjacentblocks are associated with one or more coding blocks coded in askip-mode. As described herein, a block coded in a skip-mode is skippedfrom the de-blocking filtering operation during the decoding of themultimedia data. In an embodiment, the blocks that may be skipped withlittle or no distortion are not decoded, thereby resulting in asubstantial computational savings in the system.

The filtering module 606 is communicatively associated or coupled withthe processing module 604. In an embodiment, the filtering module 606 isconfigured to filter an edge between the pair of adjacent blocks basedon the determination of the pair of adjacent blocks being associatedwith one or more coding units coded in the skip-mode. For example, in anembodiment, the filtering module 604 is configured to disable thede-blocking filtering of the edge based on the determination of the pairof adjacent blocks are associated with one or more coding units coded inthe skip-mode. In an embodiment, the filtering module 604 is configuredto perform a disabling of the de-blocking filtering of the edge byassigning a zero value to a BS parameter associated with the edge. It isnoted that the term “boundary strength” as used herein, may beconstrued, for example, as referring to the strength of an edge betweena pair of adjacent blocks and is a numerical value computed based on anencoding mode of the adjacent blocks associated with the edge andencoding data associated with the adjacent blocks.

The foregoing notwithstanding, in one embodiment, the processing module602 is configured to determine that the pair of adjacent blocks areintra-coded. In an embodiment, upon determining that either of the pairof blocks is intra-coded, the processing module 602 is furtherconfigured to determine whether the edge positioned between the blocksfrom among the pair of blocks is associated with one or more codingunits coded in the skip mode. The processing module 602 is furtherconfigured to assign a value of 3 or 4 to the BS parameter based on thedetermination that the edge is associated with the coding unit. A valueof 3 or 4 being assigned to the BS parameter is indicative of a strongde-blocking filtering. It is noted that the performance of thede-blocking filtering is maintained stronger at edges containing asignificant amount of blocking distortion, such as an edge betweenadjacent intra-coded blocks and between adjacent blocks containing codedcoefficients.

In an embodiment, the filtering module 604 is configured to enable thede-blocking filtering by determining coding parameters associated withthe pair of adjacent blocks and assigning a value to a BS parameterassociated with the block edge based on the coding parameters. In anembodiment, the coding parameters includes at least one of residualdata, motion estimation data and data associated with one or morereference pictures corresponding to the blocks (such as discussed hereinwith reference to FIGS. 4 and 5).

In an embodiment, the processing module 602 is further configured todetermine whether at least one block from among a pair of adjacentblocks is coded in a skip-mode. Based on the determination by theprocessing module 602 that the block is coded in the skip-mode, thefiltering module 606 is configured to disable the de-blocking filteringfrom each of the internal edges of the block based on the assignment ofthe zero BS parameter value to the block. As an example, consider theblock to be a CU of size 16×16 that may include two TUs of size 8×8. Thede-blocking filtering of the CU may involve a de-blocking filtering offour edges associated with the two TUs inside the CU. However, when theprocessing module 602 determines that the CU is coded in a skip-mode,then the filtering module 604 may disable the de-blocking filtering fromeach of the four edges associated with the TUs inside the CU. Thedisabling of the de-blocking filtering from the internal edges of the CUbased on the determination of the mode of CU as a skip-mode facilitatesin saving relatively significant on-chip memory and corresponding memoryaccess during frame-based processing of the multimedia data. In anembodiment, the processing module 604 may identify the coding mode of ablock for example, a CU coded in skip-mode, merely by observing the skipflag associated with the block. In an embodiment, based on theobservation of the skip flag, the processing module may disable thecomputations associated with the de-blocking filtering of the internaledges associated with that block, thereby avoiding a complex computationassociated with the determination of a BS parameter for de-blockingfiltering. The reduction in computation also facilitates in relativelysignificant power savings in the system.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram of an integrated circuit 702 configured toremove blocking artifacts from block-coded multimedia data according toan embodiment. The integrated circuit 702 comprises a transceiver module704, a coding module 706, a memory module 708 and a display module 710.The transceiver module 704, the multimedia processing module 706, thememory module 708 and the display module 708 are communicativelyassociated or coupled with each other using data path 712. Herein, itshould be appreciated that at least some of the components describedbelow in connection with the integrated circuit 700 may be optional andthus in an example embodiment may include more, less or differentcomponents than those described in connection with the exampleembodiment of FIG. 7.

The transceiver module 704 is communicatively associated or coupled witha plurality of multimedia resources 714 and is configured to receivemultimedia data from one or more multimedia resources from among theplurality of multimedia resources 714. Examples of the multimediaresources may include, but are not limited to (1) remote multimediasystems, (2) media capture devices such as a camera, camcorders and thelike, and (3) multimedia storage devices such as magnetic tapes, disks,computer-readable media and the like. In an embodiment, the transceivermodule 704 may include an antenna and/or network connectors configuredto connect to wired networks (for example, local area networks (LANs))and wireless networks (for example, cellular networks), or a combinationthereof (for example, the Internet). Examples of network connectors mayinclude a universal serial bus (USB) interface, a wireless LANinterface, an infrared interface, an Ethernet port and the like.

The coding module 706 is configured to perform at least one of encodingmultimedia data and decoding multimedia data. In an embodiment, thetransceiver module 704 may be configured to receive the multimedia datain encoded form and provide the encoded multimedia data to the codingmodule 706. The coding module 706 may be configured to decode theencoded multimedia data and provide the decoded multimedia media to thememory module 708 for storage or to the display module 710 in order todisplay multimedia media on a display 716. In an embodiment, the codingmodule 706 may be configured to encode the video data and provide thevideo data to transceiver module 704 for transmission purposes or tomemory module 708 for storage purposes.

In an embodiment, the coding module 706 may be configured to includecomponents such as the processing module 718 and the filtering module720, which may be substantially similar to processing module 602 and thefiltering module 604, respectively, of system 600 of FIG. 6. In anembodiment, the coding module 706 may include an encoding module 718 anda blocking artifacts reduction module 720 communicatively associated orcoupled with the encoding module 718. The components within the codingmodule 706 are configured to perform functions of respective componentsas discussed in FIG. 6, which are not repeated herein for the sake ofbrevity.

The memory module 708 is configured to store the multimedia datasubsequent to one of the encoding of multimedia data and the decoding ofthe encoded multimedia data. The memory module 708 may be furtherconfigured to store the information associated with the mode of theblocks. For example, the memory module 708 may store one bit ofinformation ascertaining the encoding mode of the block as a skip-mode.In an embodiment, the memory module 708 is configured to store themultimedia data subsequent to the reduction of the blocking artifactsfrom the block-coded multimedia data. Examples of memory module 708 mayinclude, but are not limited to, random access memory (RAM), dual portRAM, synchronous dynamic RAM (SDRAM), double data rate SDRAM (DDRSDRAM), and the like. The display module 710 is configured to facilitatea display of the de-blocked multimedia data on display 716. The displaymay be facilitated, for example, in response to a user input receivedusing a user interface (not shown in FIG. 7). Examples of display 716may include a light crystal display (LCD) panel, a plasma display panel,a field emission display and the like.

In an embodiment the integrated circuit 702 may be an applicationprocessor chip. In an embodiment, the integrated circuit 702 may be apart of general processor chip embedded within a multimedia system.Examples of the multimedia systems may include, but are not limited to,(1) multimedia devices, such as cellular phones, digital video camerasand digital camcorders; (2) data processing devices, such as personalcomputers, laptops and personal digital assistants; and (3) consumerelectronics, such as set top boxes, digital video disk (DVD) players andvideo network servers.

Without in any way limiting the scope, interpretation, or application ofthe claims appearing below, advantages of one or more of the exemplaryembodiments disclosed herein include reducing blocking artifacts fromthe multimedia data based on a determination of a coding mode of blocksenclosing an edge. In particular, when the coding mode associated withthe pair of adjacent blocks is determined to be a skip-mode, thede-blocking filtering of the edge disposed in-between the pair ofadjacent blocks is disabled. Also, when it is determined that at leastone of the blocks is coded in the skip-mode, then the de-blockingfiltering of the internal edges associated with the at least one blockis also disabled. The disabling of the de-blocking filtering for suchedges improves the system performance since the computation involved indetermining the BS parameter for such edges and de-blocking filteringsuch edges based on the BS parameter involves a relatively significantmemory allocation. With the reduction in the memory allocation andcomputations involved, the power consumption of the system is greatlyreduced, thereby increasing an overall performance of the system.

Although the present technology has been described with reference tospecific exemplary embodiments, it is noted that various modificationsand changes may be made to these embodiments without departing from thebroad spirit and scope of the present technology. For example, thevarious systems, modules, etc., described herein may be enabled andoperated using hardware circuitry (e.g., complementary metal oxidesemiconductor (CMOS) based logic circuitry), firmware, software and/orany combination of hardware, firmware, and/or software (e.g., embodiedin a machine readable medium). For example, the various modules andmethods may be embodied using transistors, logic gates, and electricalcircuits (e.g., application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) circuitryand/or in Digital Signal Processor (DSP) circuitry). Particularly, thesystem 600 of FIG. 6, which comprises the processing module 602 and thefiltering module 604, may be enabled using software and/or usingtransistors, logic gates, and electrical circuits (e.g., integratedcircuit circuitry such as ASIC circuitry).

Embodiments of the present disclosure include one or more computerprograms stored or otherwise embodied on a computer-readable medium,wherein the computer programs are configured to cause a processor toperform one or more operations, such as, for example, operations 402-406for method 400 or operations 502-528 for method 500. A computer-readablemedium storing, embodying, or encoded with a computer program, orsimilar language, may be embodied as a tangible data storage devicestoring one or more software programs that are configured to cause aprocessor to perform one or more operations. Such operations may be, forexample, any of the steps or operations described herein. Additionally,a tangible data storage device may be embodied as one or more volatilememory devices, one or more non-volatile memory devices, and/or acombination of one or more volatile memory devices and non-volatilememory devices.

Also, techniques, subsystems and methods described and illustrated inthe various embodiments as discrete or separate may be combined orintegrated with other systems, modules, techniques, or methods withoutdeparting from the scope of the present technology. Other items shown ordiscussed as directly communicatively associated, coupled orcommunicating with each other may be communicatively associated orcoupled with one another through some interface or device, such that theitems may no longer be considered directly communicatively associated orcoupled with each other but may still be indirectly communicativelyassociated, coupled and/or in communication, whether electrically,mechanically, or otherwise, with one another. Other examples of changes,substitutions, and alterations ascertainable by one skilled in the art,upon studying the exemplary embodiments disclosed herein, may be madewithout departing from the spirit and scope of the present technology.

It should be noted that reference throughout this specification tofeatures, advantages, or similar language does not imply that all of thefeatures and advantages should be or are in any single embodiment.Rather, language referring to the features and advantages may beunderstood to mean that a specific feature, advantage, or characteristicdescribed in connection with an embodiment may be included in at leastone embodiment of the present technology. Thus, discussions of thefeatures and advantages, and similar language, throughout thisspecification may, but do not necessarily, refer to the same embodiment.

Various embodiments of the present disclosure, as discussed above, maybe practiced with steps and/or operations in a different order, and/orwith hardware elements in configurations which are different than thosewhich are disclosed. Therefore, although the technology has beendescribed based upon these exemplary embodiments, it is noted thatcertain modifications, variations, and alternative constructions may beapparent and well within the spirit and scope of the technology.

Although various exemplary embodiments of the present technology aredescribed herein in a language specific to structural features and/ormethodological acts, the subject matter defined in the appended claimsis not necessarily limited to the specific features or acts describedabove. Rather, the specific features and acts described above aredisclosed as exemplary forms of implementing the claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method comprising: receiving a pair of blocks,a first block of the pair of blocks being associated with a first codingunit of a plurality of coding units and a first code block flagparameter, a second block of the pair of blocks being associated with asecond coding unit of the plurality of coding units and a second codeblock flag parameter, the plurality of coding units comprising codinginformation associated with coding of the plurality of coding units;determining, based on the coding information, whether both of the blocksin the pair of blocks belong to respective coding units that are codedin a skip-mode; assigning a zero value to a boundary strength (BS)parameter in response to determining that the pair of blocks belong torespective coding units that are coded in the skip-mode; in response todetermining that the pair of blocks belong to respective coding unitsthat are not coded in the skip mode, determining whether the first codeflag parameter is non-zero or the second code flag parameter isnon-zero; assigning a non-zero value to the BS parameter in response todetermining that either (a) the first code flag parameter is non-zero or(b) the second code flag parameter is non-zero.
 2. The method of claim1, wherein enabling the de-blocking filtering comprises: determiningcoding parameters respectively associated with the pair of blocks; andassigning a value to the BS parameter associated based on the codingparameters.
 3. The method of claim 2, wherein the coding parameterscomprise at least one of a residual data, a motion estimation data and adata associated with one or more reference pictures corresponding to thepair of blocks.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein the pair of blocks hasan edge positioned between the pair of blocks and the edge is one of ahorizontal edge and a vertical edge.
 5. The method as claimed in claim1, wherein each block of the pair of blocks comprises at least one oftransform blocks and prediction blocks.
 6. The method of claim 1,further comprising; conducting a determination that at least one blockfrom among the pair of the blocks belong to a respective coding unitthat is coded in the skip-mode; and disabling the de-blocking filteringin response to determining that the at least one block from among thepair of blocks belong to the respective coding unit that is coded in theskip mode.
 7. A system comprising: a processing module configured to:receive a pair of blocks, a first block of the pair of blocks beingassociated with a first coding unit of a plurality of coding units and afirst code block flag parameter, a second block of the pair of blocksbeing associated with a second coding unit of the plurality of codingunits and a second code block flag parameter, the plurality of codingunits comprising coding information associated with coding of theplurality of coding units; determine, based on the coding information,both of the blocks in the pair of blocks belong to respective codingunits that are coded in a skip-mode; assign a zero value to a boundarystrength (BS) parameter in response to determining that the pair ofblocks belong to respective coding units that are coded in skip-mode; inresponse to determining that the pair of blocks belong to respectivecoding units that are not coded in the skip mode, determine whether thefirst code flag parameter is non-zero or the second code flag parameteris non-zero; and assign a non-zero value to the BS parameter in responseto determining that either (a) the first code flag parameter is non-zeroor (b) the second code flag parameter is non-zero; and and a filteringmodule communicatively associated with the processing module andconfigured to: disable a de-blocking filtering in response to the BSparameter set to zero value.
 8. The system of claim 7, wherein thefiltering module is further configured to enable the de-blockingfiltering by: determining coding parameters associated with the pair ofblocks, respectively; and assigning a value to the BS parameter based onthe coding parameters.
 9. The system of claim 8, wherein the codingparameters comprise at least one of a residual data, a motion estimationdata and a data associated with one or more reference picturescorresponding to the pair of blocks.
 10. The system of claim 7, whereinthe pair of blocks has an edge positioned between the blocks and theedge is one of a horizontal edge and a vertical edge.
 11. The system asclaimed in claim 7, wherein each block of the pair of blocks comprisesone of transform blocks and prediction blocks.
 12. The system of claim7, wherein the processing module is further configured to determinewhether at least one block from the pair of blocks is associated with acoding unit coded in the skip-mode.
 13. The system of claim 12, whereinthe filtering module is further configured to disable the de-blockingfiltering in response to determining that the at least one block fromamong the pair of blocks belong to the respective coding unit that iscoded in the skip mode.
 14. The system of claim 7, wherein the system isone of a H.264 encoder, a HEVC based encoder, a MPEG-1 based encoder, aMPEG 2 based encoder and a MPEG-4 based encoder.
 15. The system of claim7, wherein the system is one of a H.264 based decoder, a HEVC baseddecoder, a MPEG-1 based decoder, MPEG 2 based decoder and MPEG-4 baseddecoder.
 16. The integrated circuit of claim 7, wherein the processingmodule is further configured to determine, based on the one or morecoding information, whether at least one block from among the pair ofblocks belong to a respective coding unit that is coded in theskip-mode.
 17. The integrated circuit of claim 16, wherein the filteringmodule is further configured to disable the de-blocking filtering inresponse to determining that the at least one block from among the pairof blocks belong to the respective coding unit that is coded in the skipmode.
 18. An integrated circuit comprising: a coding module comprising:a processing module configured to: receive a pair of blocks, a firstblock of the pair of blocks being associated with a first coding unit ofa plurality of coding units, a second block of the plurality of blocksbeing associated with a second coding unit of the plurality of codingunits, the plurality of coding units comprising coding informationassociated with the coding of the plurality of coding units; determine,based on the coding information, whether both of the blocks in the pairof blocks belong to respective coding units that are coded in askip-mode; and assign a zero value to a boundary strength (BS) parameterin response to determining that the pair of blocks belong to respectivecoding units that are coded in skip-mode; in response to determiningthat the pair of blocks belong to respective coding units that are notcoded in the skip mode, determine whether the first code flag parameteris non-zero or the second code flag parameter is non-zero; and assign anon-zero value to the BS parameter in response to determining thateither (a) the first code flag parameter is non-zero or (b) the secondcode flag parameter is non-zero; and a filtering module communicativelycoupled with the processing module and configured to: disable ade-blocking filtering in response to the BS parameter set to zero value.